Shakespeare as All-Too-Modern Nightmare

A production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ that’s fixated on playing to today’s tastes.

Sohrab Ahmari

The mania for rendering stage classics “relevant” has arrived at Shakespeare’s Globe. The theater’s new artistic director, Emma Rice, says she wants to make Shakespeare palatable to today’s tastes—and today’s politics. Bragging that she’s “got custody of this canon for a while,” she told the Guardian she is committed to a 50-50 gender balance onstage. Judging by her debut production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the result is a messy affair that obscures Shakespeare’s timeless genius.